Medicine/Healing

Fentanyl Now America’s Deadliest Drug, Federal Health Officials Say

It’s the first time the synthetic opioid has been the nation’s deadliest drug. From 2012 to 2015, heroin topped the list, [according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. ​On average, in each year from 2013 to 2016, the rate of overdose deaths from Fentanyl increased by about 113 percent  a year.  The report said fentanyl was responsible…

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Politics

Time to write the legal history and future of psychedelics

A body of civil law governing access to psychedelic substances does not exist yet. It is necessary to write the law. Psychedelic law is essentially a subcategory of commercial law since fundamentally psychedelic substances are just goods that travel in commerce; however, they must be considered separate and apart from other substances due to their…

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Politics

We ban cannabis [and other psychedelics] but let people eat as much meat as they want. That makes… [rather limited] sense.

But the reason we have prohibition is nothing to do with preventing social harm. It’s about the queasiness politicians feel about legalising something that they perceive still has a huge social stigma attached, even though the public is now firmly in favour of legalisation …  It’s perhaps not surprising that [current “war on some drugs”) prohibition is…

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Biography/Memoir

Dark web dealers voluntarily ban deadly fentanyl

Major dark web drug suppliers have started to voluntarily ban the synthetic opioid fentanyl because it is too dangerous, the National Crime Agency has said … It is the first known instance of these types of operators moving to effectively ban a drug.  One type of fentanyl, carfentanyl, is thousands of times stronger than heroin and…

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Modern Culture

The steady rise of the trippy festival

The most common drug used at festivals is alcohol, and it also happens to be the most problematic for health workers. The rising number of music festivals inspired by psychedelic drugs are clearly tapping into a growing need to take time out from normal life, but also to go on a mental journey, surrounded by…

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Science

The many colors of kratom explained

Some leaves have red stem and vein, while others can have white or green ones. Each color has a different chemical composition and different concentrations of alkaloids. Kratom comes in a variety of colors, and one often thinks if all the colors of Kratom are same. Many people think that just because different types of Kratom are…

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Politics

How a kratom ban… [would] create health risks and suffering—and fuel terrorism

There are at least three major hazards inherent in the government’s [increasingly prohibitionist stance and] approach. First, it risks pulling the safety net away from millions of Americans who managed to find a relatively inexpensive alternative to “big bad” opioids, using it for everything from back pain to fibromyalgia… Second, outlawing the powdered leaves of…[kratom] and…

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Modern Culture

Inside a music festival in a country where all drugs are decriminalized

In Portugal, where the government’s approach to drugs is almost completely outside the realm of law enforcement, the climate at music festivals is rather different. Onsite drug-checking services test purity, and virtually no one is hassled for their supplements of choice. That’s because 15 years ago, a bold national policy was implemented where low-level possession of…

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